


i am older now

by ama



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Dialogue Heavy, Divorce, F/M, Friendship, Light Angst, Marriage, Parenthood, Past Aang/Katara (Avatar), Past Mai/Zuko (Avatar)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:09:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22934596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/ama
Summary: After Zuko relinquishes the throne to his daughter, he visits Katara at the South Pole. For the first time in years, they open up about their families, their sacrifices, the things they regret and the things they don't.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 412





	i am older now

**Author's Note:**

> Confession: I haven't actually seen LoK all the way through. I have read some transcripts, and LOTS of meta, and seen clips and read summaries, and I've seen enough to know it's not my general cup of tea... but damn do I love second loves and old people and characters talking through their shit. And I was frustrated at the writing's treatment of Katara and really wanted to try and come up with some actual explanation for it that gave justice to both her and Aang's characterization in A:TLA. Hopefully the writing lives up to that "canon compliant" tag I slapped on this.
> 
> Title is from We Did It When We Were Young, by the Gaslight Anthem, because I thought to myself "hm what's a good title--can't be a Gaslight Anthem song lyric because I JUST did one of those lol" and that put me on the path to remembering this song and I just couldn't help myself.

“I hope you’re not expecting me to bow.”

Zuko slid off Druk’s neck into the snow. An irrepressible smile spread across his face as he patted the dragon’s neck and squinted at the modest ice house before him, shining in the dazzling sunlight.

“Katara,” he said warmly. “Have I ever expected you to bow?”

“Because you’re not even the Fire Lord now,” Katara said, ignoring him. She crossed her arms. “Just some old man.”

“And what does that make you?”

“Two years younger.”

“Mom, you’re not even going to let him in from the cold before you start bickering?” Kya said. She nudged her mother aside gently with her elbow and crossed the threshold, extending her arms for a hug. “Hi, Uncle.”

Zuko felt his heart quicken, just the slightest bit. By law, he had only one true nephew, Kiyi’s son Rian; Azula had never had children, and his marriage had imploded by the time Tom-Tom got around to having a few of his own. But he had made it very clear that he was willing to be “Uncle” to any of his old friends’ children, and Kya was the only one who hadn’t discarded it as a childish affectation. He couldn’t deny the title gave him a particular pride that even “Father” or “Grandfather” couldn’t match.

“Hello, my dear. You look well.”

“He’s not cold,” Katara said dismissively. “He’s using that old breath of fire trick. Zuko’s always the warmest person in the South Pole.”

“Mm, that’s true,” Kya said, snuggling just a bit closer before she released him. Zuko chuckled and exhaled a thin wisp of flame.

“Well, the two of you should visit the Fire Nation this summer and show off your breath of ice, and we’ll be even.”

He expected a sarcastic response, but Katara merely smiled up at him, and Zuko felt a lump in his throat. He bent down for a hug and she pulled him in tight. It was a long, long moment before they let each other go, but Kya didn’t interrupt.

“Come inside,” Katara said briskly, to cover what sounded like a rough note in her voice. “I’ve got tea. Jasmine or ginseng. I’m sorry we couldn’t stay long after the coronation,” she said as they entered the house. She began to bustle around the kitchen, setting a teapot on a tray and a kettle on the stove and shooing her daughter away when Kya tried to interfere. “Korra mastered waterbending last year, and we got an earthbending master in. There have been some—oh, let’s say minor disagreements. She’s very eager to get started firebending, spirits know why, and there was some concern she’d melt the pole if I wasn’t here. Makes the earthbender jittery, let alone the rest of the tribe. How’s Izumi?”

“Ready. A thousand times more ready than I was.”

“I meant how does she _feel_ , Zuko.”

“Izumi doesn’t feel emotions, Mom,” Kya smirked. “She’s far too mature. She feels states of being—ready, peace, harmony, all that crap.”

Katara sat down with the tea tray and flashed Zuko an expressive look. He tried to keep his face serene as he lifted his cup.

“I’d like to propose a toast,” he declared. “To daughters.”

“Hear hear,” Katara said. Kya looked wary.

“To the grey hairs we earned raising them—”

“To all the squandered good advice, because they always knew everything—”

“To the grandchildren they gave us to comfort us in our old age—”

“Or could, if they overcame their moral qualms about infant kidnapping—”

“To all the embarrassing stories we have stockpiled in our memories—”

“All right, all right!” Kya threw her hands in the air. “I get it! I will leave my _honored elders_ to reminisce in peace.”

She gave a mocking bow and left the kitchen, leaving Katara and Zuko chuckling among themselves. Zuko watched her go with a bittersweet smile.

“It’s been a few years,” he murmured. “She wasn’t all grey last I saw her.”

“I hate to break it to you, Zuko, but _your_ daughter is 57. You even have a grown grandson!”

“I know,” he sighed. “I don’t know how that happened.”

Katara sipped from her teacup and surveyed him over the rim with keen eyes.

“How do _you_ feel?”

“About what, the passage of time?”

“About Izumi. Being Fire Lord. You held that crown for a long, long time.”

“Longer than anyone else.”

“No!”

“Mm. One of my secretaries looked it up. I didn’t realize it because there were half a dozen Fire Lords who were younger when they first took the crown, but none of them lived this long.”

“Hm.” There was a peaceful pause. Zuko sipped his tea. It was jasmine—he would place good money on it being the Jasmine Dragon’s own blend, as a matter of fact, and the thought made his heart ache. The newspapers of Ba Sing Se might hail the famous tea shop still, but anyone with taste knew it would never reach the heights it had achieved under its founder. “Zuko.”

“Yes?”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“Oh. Yes… I’m not sure if I know how,” he admitted. “It’s not unheard of for a Fire Lord to step down in favor of his heir, but it’s become very uncommon, as the autocrat took on more and more power. I’ve known for decades that I wanted to pass it down to Izumi, and I’ve spent all of that time convincing her, convincing the country, helping her prepare… I never considered my own feelings until—well, the flight here, in fact.” A faint smile touched his face. “It will be difficult, I’m sure. It helps that Druk’s opinion of me doesn’t change whether I’m Fire Lord or not. And you. I’m glad to have you… and I hope Toph drags herself out of that swamp sometime soon. Friends who remember who I was before I was Fire Lord, because I don’t. I’m grateful to have help as I try to remember. And I am… sad. I can’t help but think of how I would spend all of this free time, if so many I loved had not already departed this world.”

“Mm. I felt similarly when Aang died. To be a widower after fifty years as the Avatar’s wife—it was a strange thing.”

“Especially—” Zuko cut himself off and took a sip of tea to cover his embarrassment. But Katara had never been one to suffer fools, and age had not softened her in this regard. Her eyebrows climbed.

“Especially what?”

“Katara…” He reached out to touch her hand. “I’ll speak candidly if you really want me to, but not if it would cost me my oldest and dearest friend.”

“What an ominous thing to say.” Katara stood. “I think this calls for a different kind of drink.”

“No ice wine,” Zuko pleaded as she went to the cabinet. “It gives me a terrible headache—oh.”

“I always keep a bottle on hand,” Katara said with a smirk as she hefted his preferred band of whiskey. She took down two glasses and, with a wave, produced perfect spheres of ice. “Ever since Izumi’s wedding. That was an excellent night.”

“I don’t remember much of that,” Zuko confessed.

“I’m not surprised.” Katara poured liberal portions and took a sip. She let out a satisfied sigh. “Kya is fond of this, too—we try and save it for special occasions, because otherwise we would drink far too much and Tenzin would worry.”

They drank in silence for a few minutes, preparing themselves. There had been long stretches of time in their friendship where they hadn’t argued at all—mostly because they didn’t see each other all that much. Even after the children were grown, when Katara went back to traveling with Aang, they had bounced all over the world, and Zuko had been busy in the Fire Nation. A few cordial letters a year sustained their friendship, but they had glossed over some of the… more difficult things. Zuko looked across the table at Katara now and could tell she was spoiling for a fight. The tilt of her chin always gave her away. And who else could she fight with—her daughter? Her student, the Avatar? The inhabitants of the village, who looked up to her as their most revered elder? Hardly.

She would fight with Zuko, the only one who could hold his ground against her, the only one who never flinched. Besides, these were old, old problems they need to discuss, and they were the only ones old enough to make sense of them.

He finished his first glass and poured himself a second, in preparation.

“You left the South Pole at fourteen,” he said as his opening salvo. “You single handedly forced the North Pole to begin accepting female waterbenders and became one of the youngest masters on record. You defeated a firebender during the time of the Comet and saved the soul of my nation. And for the first few years after the war, you were always traveling, trying to help. And then… you weren’t. Once you got married—it seemed like nine out of ten times I saw Aang, you were at home. It always saddened me—and frustrated me, when there were problems I knew you would be able to solve, even if only by shouting at me until I was forced to take your advice.” The ghost of a smile appeared on Katara’s face. “You could have done so much, Katara. You changed the world half a dozen times during the war, and you could have changed it a thousand times more.”

She exhaled a sharp sigh.

“Not while I was pregnant,” she said crisply. “All of my pregnancies were difficult ones—I was _lucky_ to have only a month and a half of bedrest with Kya. That was when I first started to pull back. And then… we had to manage. We had children, we had the Acolytes, Republic City. Something would have suffered, if I took on more duties… and Aang’s duty was to be the Avatar.”

She swirled her glass before taking another sip, and the amber liquid glittered in the light.

“If you knew how many times he tried to run away from it,” she murmured. “If you knew… it would chill even your bones, Zuko. The Avatar can’t be too attached to any person or way of thinking, but Aang had such a difficult time letting go. He would have given it up so many times, for me, for you, for the Air Nomads. And can you blame him? His old life was taken from him abruptly, so he clung to his new one. If I had encouraged him to do that—if I had even _once_ said ‘you can’t go out on Avatar business, Bumi’s feeling colicky’—he would have turned his back on the world.” She sighed. “So, yes. I pushed him to focus on Avatar duties for the good of the world, even if it came at the expense of our family, or my career. There were times I regretted it. But the world turned out all right anyway, didn’t it?”

Zuko nodded slowly. He didn’t trust himself to open his mouth, because he knew that if he did, he would say something impolitic.

“Besides, it’s not as though I was doing _nothing_. I was raising my children.”

“Well, someone had to,” Zuko muttered, and then he choked on his whiskey as his brain caught up with his mouth. He coughed. Katara gaped at him. Her eyes darkened.

“We—we aren’t having this conversation.”

“Why not?” Zuko asked impulsively.

“Because it wouldn’t make any difference—”

“I _tried_ to have it years ago, when it could have, and you wouldn’t talk about it then, either. It’s been almost fifty years, Katara. Is this still an off-limits topic?”

“You compared Aang to _Ozai_ ,” Katara hissed. “You said we needed to talk about how Aang’s parenting was affecting Bumi and Kya because ‘you of all people know what it’s like to have a difficult relationship with your father’—”

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he admitted.

“Not to mention the absurdly patronizing notion that _I_ was more responsible for Aang’s actions than _he_ was—”

“Aang’s attitude made sense to me,” Zuko interrupted. “He was raised as a monk; he never had one father, always a dozen at a time, always someone to step in. I understood why he was making his mistakes. But you were an exceptional mother and I had always thought you had no problem speaking your mind, and I didn’t understand you. I was worried about you. I wanted to help.”

Katara exhaled deeply. She ran a hand over her face, and they were quiet for a long minute. He thought of Kya and hoped that whatever she was doing elsewhere in the house, she was wholly invested. This was not a conversation she ought to walk in on.

“You’re a father,” she said finally. “How do you sit a father down and tell him he doesn’t love his children enough?”

Zuko had no response.

“Exactly. You can’t. Of course he loves them. All of them. You have to be very gentle, instead, have to focus on what he’s doing instead of how he feels. Tell him he needs to talk to them more, he has to take them out more, if he could just—just take them along on Avatar business, if he can’t prioritize them over it. He always got better, for a little while. They would go on little hikes and things around the island. But then he would think of an adventure that you really _needed_ airbending to enjoy, and the other kids would be bored, so it would just be him and Tenzin. Or this time it was a spontaneous trip, they were doing bison training and decided to hop over and didn’t have time to get anyone else. And Kya and Bumi began to give up, over time. They pulled away first, so it would hurt less.”

Zuko thought of his uncle, and his breath of fire guttered out. He gulped at what was left of his whiskey and refilled both their glasses without a word.

“So we had the conversation again. And again. It was so hard to have it the first time, and it got harder each time, because he _was_ trying and it still wasn’t good enough, and… and it wasn’t worth it, anymore. The kids had me. I would stay with them. I would give them every second of my time, I wouldn’t let them doubt for a moment that they were loved by _both_ of us, and we wouldn’t give that resentment space to grow between us. Our marriage would have suffered, and then, to let the kids see us fall apart—it seemed like the worst alternative.”

There was a sour taste in the back of Zuko’s mouth. He leaned back in his chair and cleared his throat. Katara blushed.

“I—Zuko, I didn’t mean—”

“Didn’t you?”

They stared at each other for a moment in a silent challenge. Katara’s chin tilted further.

“Did you even _try_ to mend things with Mai?”

“No.”

“That’s what I thought. We saw you just a few months before, at the Peace Day ceremonies, and you were perfectly fine—”

“We were _polite._ We didn’t fight in public, but the two of us didn’t speak to each other once that day.”

“Why didn’t you come to us? You never told us you were having problems. You never asked for help. We heard about the divorce at the same time as everyone else, and when we tried to talk to you—”

“ _You_ didn’t try to talk to me,” Zuko countered, resentment simmering in his voice. “You sent Aang and Sokka and a letter—”

“Tenzin was sick,” Katara said, and her copper cheeks darkened. “And I thought—I don’t know why—I thought you would be more candid with other men. Obviously I was wrong. Aang wouldn’t even tell me what you said, except that you were being stubborn and ridiculous.”

For a moment, Zuko was confused, and then he barked out a laugh.

“I almost forgot about that. I told him Mai and I hadn’t shared a bed since Izumi was conceived. He thought that was the main problem, and that I was being crude and unfeeling. I thought the fact that we hadn’t been affectionate in private for six years was a testament to the enormity of the main problem, which was that I didn’t love her and never had.”

Katara had smothered a smirk, but at the end of his sentence she frowned and crossed her arms.

“I was wondering when your trademark sense of melodrama would flare up again.”

“Melodrama?”

“ _Never_? Please, Zuko.”

“It’s true.”

“Of course you loved her at some point. You married her!”

“I know. I…” He paused. “What did Sokka say, when he came back? Did he say I was being ridiculous?”

He didn’t have to ask what Toph said—if Aang or Katara had asked her to join their little Campaign to Save Zuko’s Marriage, she would have laughed herself silly.

“No,” Katara admitted. “He said he had done the best he could, but you had made your decision and we should all leave you alone. Then again, he never really liked Mai much, did he?”

“It was more that he wasn’t happy to have her around because he knew I shouldn’t have married her. He knew it was going to fall apart. I asked him for his advice before the wedding and then ignored all of it.” He sighed. “The Fire Nation was glad to see me marrying a noblewoman from a good family, and after her father—well, _everybody_ was glad to see I could bring a formerly rebellious family over to my side. It was good to have a young Fire Lord settling down, modelling life as a just and kind husband and father for the nation… and I knew her already. It seemed—easier—than trying to find someone new and go through all the motions and get my heart broken a few times. I was busy enough trying to fix the country.”

“But you must have—there must have been some reason you dated her in the first place.”

“Of course. It was after Ba Sing Se.” (Seventy years of friendship, dozens if not hundreds of visits to the Impenetrable City, and yet he didn’t need to clarify the reference. She knew.) “I was conflicted. I knew I had made the wrong choice and didn’t want to admit it, and Mai didn’t force me to. She didn’t care about the war or politics or anything beyond her own people. Does that make sense? She cared about helping Azula and Ty Lee and me. That was what I wanted, someone who cared about me and very little else. It wasn’t what I _needed_. I needed someone to push me, to challenge me, someone who cared as much as I do. It got worse when I became Fire Lord. She hated seeing me so worn down, but I discarded most of her advice, good and bad, because I knew she would value me above our nation and I couldn’t allow that. I didn’t love her, and over time she stopped loving me.” He shrugged. “I thought divorce was the kinder option. It would free us from our unhappiness.”

“You never remarried,” Katara pointed out softly. “Neither did she.”

“No.” The word stuck in his throat, and he took a sip of whiskey. “No… I had more important things to worry about. As for Mai, I think the idea of marriage had been soured, but I know she had other lovers, for a few months or years at a time, until she got bored. She used to take those long vacations, you remember, and she usually had a companion for those. She was happy, I think.”

He had had other lovers, too, for a few hours or nights at a time—but he would sooner dig his old dao out of the closet and fall on them than admit it.

“And you?”

“Hm?”

“Were you happy?”

“Yes. I had Izumi… my mother, my uncle, my sisters, my friends. My country. Yes, I was happy.” Katara nodded, but her lips were tightly pressed together and her eyes couldn’t quite meet his. “You look like you don’t believe me.”

“I do. I do. I—I won’t try to argue you were unhappy if you feel otherwise. But… I’ve always believed that love was my driving force. My love for Aang put everything else in place—my home, my children, my family. I saw the world differently, and better, because I loved him. And I’m sorry that you didn’t have that.”

The alcohol had loosened his tongue and stoked his inner flame. Zuko felt amusement more easily, fear less so. He grinned wryly and said, “Oh, I didn’t say _that_.”

“What?

“That I’d never been in love.”

“You said—”

“With Mai.” He downed the rest of his glass. “The talk I had with Sokka before the wedding, that confirmed I didn’t love her, but it wasn’t the only thing. I had a—basis for comparison.”

He rolled the glass around on its rim, watching the way the blue light reflected in the crystal cuts. Katara’s house was small, cozy, intimate—nothing like the lofty temples of the Air Nomads or the grandiose Fire Palace. Zuko had never gotten used to that. There were spots he loved—his room, his study, the garden, the little dining room he had shared with Izumi—but the palace was not a home. In it, he was always conscious of being the Fire Lord. Here, he was…. Zuko. Which was probably why he was about to do a very foolish thing that he had successfully avoided for decades. Almost a lifetime.

“I don’t know if you remember this. I don’t know if you even noticed at the time. But, at the agni kai—” His voice went hoarse, and he cleared his throat. “After Azula hit me, I tried to get up. For you. I could feel every— most of all I remember the pain, everywhere, not a part of me that didn’t hurt. And I remember thinking that you were still fighting, and I needed to help you. Even if I was dying, even if I only had the energy for one more blow. If all I could do was crawl, I would crawl. That’s love. Not the instinct, but the choice. I would have done the same for Izumi, from the moment I held her. The same for my nation. But not for Mai. If I had ever loved her, I would have been willing to fight for our marriage. Instead… I had so many other things to fight for, and the very thought of it made me exhausted.”

He sighed and sat back in his chair. The room was so quiet, Zuko could heard the wind outside and the low groaning Druk made when he was settling in a new position during a nap. He looked at the window. The summer sun made the ice crystals sparkle.

“I’m sorry for what I said earlier,” he said finally. “We both put our children first. You sacrificed your career for your marriage, and I did the opposite. There’s no right way to make those sacrifices. We did the best we could.”

“Mm.” Katara traced the rim of her glass with one finger. “Did you just confess that you’ve been in love with me since you were sixteen?”

“More or less.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“A very, very long time ago.”

“Why haven’t you said anything before now?”

“I didn’t want to put you in that position.”

“What position?”

“Having to turn down a friend. I thought either it would throw doubt on our entire friendship and you would never trust me again, or—or you would feel so bad about hurting me that the pity would kill me.”

“And if I hadn’t turned you down?”

“You would have.”

Katara wouldn’t look at him. She stood, taking both of her cups, and set them on the counter. She moved around for a few moments aimlessly, opening and closing cabinets, unfolding and refolding towels.

“I thought about it, once,” she admitted. “You and me.” His heart began to pound.

“When?”

“When you first tried to talk to me about the kids. I know I turned you away, but part of me thought—it’s so nice to argue with someone who is standing their ground. And you were always so devoted to Izumi, which is always an attractive quality, and—well, I won’t pretend you weren’t easy on the eyes. Very little grey in your hair back then.”

“Silver,” Zuko corrected. “Dignified.”

 _That was all?_ a voice whispered in the back of his head. _You didn’t feel anything that day in the caves, when I showed you more of myself than I had shown anyone in years? When we sat up together underneath the Comet, waiting for news? That one summer solstice, the year before your wedding, you and me alone in the garden watching the fireworks?_

Yet part of him was relieved. Anyone who lived to be his age accumulated their fair share of regrets, but the idea of having had all those chances and missed them might have tipped the scale.

“It wasn’t a serious thought.”

“No.”

“It was—a fantasy. ‘Oh, I wonder how things might have been different,’ not a plan to change them. You never thought of what would happen if you actually left Aang for me… the hurt it would cause him, the resentment of your children, the scandal, forcing your friends and family to pick sides…”

“No,” Katara sighed. “I didn’t go that far. You did?”

“Every time I considered telling you, no matter how briefly. I’d lived it already. I knew what to expect.”

“And I suppose a brief, secret, passionate affair would have been dishonorable?”

Katara sat back down. There was a bit of wickedness in her grin, and Zuko felt the tips of his ears turn red.

“Extremely.”

“Too bad. I suppose we’ll never know, then.”

Zuko considered the bottle of whiskey for a moment and decided that he had had enough; instead, he held the teapot on his palm and reheated its contents. Uncle always lambasted reheated tea, but Zuko had never tasted the difference. He poured a new cup just as Katara began to laugh.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said in a choked-off voice. “I was going to say—ridiculous—”

“What?” Zuko repeated, his lip curling in an unconscious smile over the rim of the teacup.

“I was going to say that things were easier when we were young.”

Zuko stared at her in bewilderment, and that set her off on another round of giggles. Laughter bubbled up in his chest, and before he knew it, he was struggling to breathe.

 _“When?”_ he spluttered. “When?”

Katara shook her head helplessly.

“Maybe those first few months after the war—when you got to fly around the world with your boyfriend and I was left running a whole country—”

“Stop,” Katara wheezed, resting a hand on top of his. “Stop—I didn’t—”

“Or when we were small children, before we could walk or talk or feed ourselves—”

They fell into a tizzy again, and couldn’t drag themselves out until Kya had come back into the room and crossed her arms.

“Let me guess,” she said. “Another joke at the expense of your poor, defenseless children.”

“Not at all, dear,” Katara said, wiping at her eyes. “As a matter of fact…”

She considered Zuko for a moment and tilted her head. He raised an eyebrow. She gave a decisive nod and stood.

“As a matter of fact, we’re leaving.”

“You are?”

“We are?”

“Yes.” She came around the table and tugged Zuko up by his elbow, lacing their arms together. “We’re going to the Purple Penguin. Zuko is taking me on a date.”

“He _is_?”

“I _am_?” Zuko’s face felt like it was on fire. He looked down at her—she barely reached his shoulder—and found her looking at him with the impish grin that had always made his stomach flop over at the Western Air Temple, even when he knew she was mocking him. (That had been a very confusing time.) But there was a different sort of light in her eyes, a steady, gentle hopefulness that he recognized from Ember Island. “I am,” he repeated faintly. He cleared his throat and corrected his posture to the very picture of courtly etiquette. “I am.”

_“Monkeyfeathers.”_

“Kya!” Katara exclaimed, hurt, and Zuko’s stomach flopped over for different reasons.

“Of course I would never presume—”

“We’re not making any dramatic—”

“—utmost respect and admiration for—”

“—just a date, see how—”

“Oh, stop,” Kya said, rolling her eyes. “You’re adults, you can make your own decisions, etc etc. I was thinking of something else.” She spotted the whiskey on the table and swooped in to grab it. With her other hand, she ushered them towards the door. “You two go, have a lovely time. Make sure she’s back by midnight, young man.”

“How am I supposed to know when that is?” Zuko protested, glancing up at the unmoving sun.

“You won’t, but I will. That’s what makes it fun.”

Kya slammed the door behind them. For one moment, Zuko was frozen, more by the shock than the cold, but then Katara started walking, and he moved to keep up with her. That was natural, he thought with a smile. They had always moved together—it had startled them, how easily they worked as one when they were chasing the Southern Raiders. She curled her arm closer through his and rested her other hand atop it.

“How long are you staying?”

“A week, I think. I made plans to meet Iroh in Republic City. He’s generously using his leave to show his old grandfather around for a few days, and then it’s back to the Fire Nation. You could come,” he added hopefully. “Ember Island is lovely this time of year.”

“It’s winter in the Fire Nation, Zuko.”

“Ember Island is lovely year-round. And Druk may not be as comfortable as Appa, but he’s twice as fast.”

“I promised I would stay until Korra finishes her training,” she said. “After that… perhaps.” She looked up at him with a smile that took his breath away. “We’ll see how our date goes.”

“Perhaps is good enough for me.”

—

Kya dropped into a kitchen chair and took a pull straight from the whiskey bottle.

“Crazy kids,” she muttered. She fished a worn piece of paper from her wallet and squinted at the faded ink. “Let’s see… I owe Izumi because it’s within a year of retirement— _ten_ silver? Damn.”

But she would get five from Bumi, who had been convinced they would hear of their relationship for the first time after they eloped (“They’re not _you_ ,” Kya had pointed out), and ten from Tenzin, the oblivious idiot, who had been downright shocked at the idea that their mother might ever start a relationship with Zuko (“Zuko? _Fire Lord_ Zuko? _Dad’s best friend_ Zuko?”). If only they had waited a few more years, until Korra had finished….

“Still. Not bad. Not bad.”

She stared down at the paper for another moment, and then rested her head on her folded arms and let out a deep sigh, thinking about the letters she had to write and her unshakeable jealousy of the Fire Lord and how much she missed her father.


End file.
